


The Meaty Meal

by koi_ling



Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: A lot of Existentialism, Angst, Bad Ending, Implied!Cannibalism, M/M, Melancholy, not so implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 00:38:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8307085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koi_ling/pseuds/koi_ling
Summary: "There is something unsettling in that perfection, something that makes Mino wonder how it would look after being tainted and broken."Mino finds a touch of colour in his dull life, and like every big change, that's the beginning of a chain reaction.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Is it art or is it junk? Anyway enjoy your meal!

The sky is turning darker, the last touch of bright pink and orange fading in a duller violet. Glimpses of thin tattered clouds disappear in the blue darkness of the night, as Mino walks down the street. He carries his briefcase in his right hand, swinging it at every step, and even if it’s still summer, he’s already wearing the top of his suit because it’s an oddly humid evening. The breeze is chill enough to make shivers run down his spine.

Mino has no hurry. His mind flickers from the dying sunset to hours of work spent at his small desk, and once more to the colours quickly changing in the sky. He wishes he could use that palette to paint something as beautiful and fleeting as that dusk, but it’s been a long time since his hand has grabbed a brush instead of his always buzzing smartphone. He’s not even sure he could locate his art tools in the mess of papers and old files that is his flat.

It’s a bit too late when he notices he’s taken the wrong turn at the last intersection. Mino never steps out of the usual route bringing him home from the subway station and vice versa, because after a long day at the office he has no wish to stroll around. Sometimes he misses that time when he was younger and he could just spend hours discovering every nook and cranny of his city, feeding his own soul with scenes and colours he could only find by seeking them, by raising his eyes from the ground and looking around. But he literally has no time to mull over it for too long, so he always forsakes his wistful thinking for a sound hour of sleep.

Today, like so many other days, he’s prompt to go back home without even casting a glance at what’s around him, but something catches his eye and makes him stop in his tracks. There is a drop of colour in the poorly lit street, a shimmering shrine of neon lights and bright shades of red and pink and white. The sign “The Meaty Meal” – written in halogenous acid yellow – towers the double doored entrance.

His thoughts are faster than any possible objection: Mino decides he’ll change his routine, even just for once.

 

 

The inside is as entrancing as the outside, the same warm colours repeating in the wide room: white and pink octagonal tiles cover the floor and the first quarter of the walls, reminding him of those beehives he’s seen only on TV and cladding the room in a retro style, which is reinforced by pink-enamelled tables and the very 50s red seats. Mino is sure that could be a nice location for something eventful, something out of the ordinary.

A waiter welcomes him, capturing his attention at once. And how to avert his eyes to such striking looks? From the perfectly chiselled face – bright doe eyes, soft pink lips, thick eyebrows, and a nose reminding him of those Greek statues he admired so much once – to a well-built body, everything is heavenly beautiful and proportioned. The only peculiar quirk, which stirs Mino’s interest even more, is his pastel pink hair. It would look ridiculous on anyone else but suits him nevertheless.

“Welcome to _The Meaty Meal_! The diner that will satisfy you to death”, he grins openly, pearly teeth starkly white against his lips. Mino smiles back, unable to resist such radiating beauty. He already feels a bit better, his whole body relaxing from a tension he didn’t know was embed in his muscles.

He finds himself following Jinwoo – Mino read his nametag – so naturally, an unknown jittery thrill filling his stomach like it hasn’t happened in years.

Trotting behind Jinwoo, Mino is reminded of when he fancied himself an art student and his old professor kept claiming that humans are naturally attracted to everything beautiful, harmonious, and Greek art was the highest example of that. Humans love it as much as they love everything horrid, decadent, festering; Mino used to reply, bringing a lot of more modern examples to his cause. Those were the times when he still knew passion and wished for glory. Now, he’s the walking proof of his professor’s theories.

Jinwoo leads him to a small table for two and hands him a menu along with another one of his killer smiles. “Take your time to look at our carte, you’ll see many delicacies that you can find only here”. His voice is as playful as his eyes and Mino almost thinks he’s not only talking about the food, but stops before making a fool of himself.

He buries his head between the few pages of the menu, rolling the familiar and unfamiliar names on his tongue, his lips quirking in a smile at the music references he can recognize in that long list of names. Even before settling on his choice for the night, his eyes wanders on the half-empty diner, small groups of people or lonely costumers eating their food without hurry, and Jinwoo moving from table to table carrying a pot of hot coffee.

There is something unsettling in that perfection, something that makes Mino wonder how it would look after being tainted and broken. He doesn’t indulge much in that silly idea, though, as he goes back to the menu.

 

*

 

Mino finds himself taking the wrong turn again, retracing his once clueless steps that brought him to the diner the first time. Every time, he’s almost blinded by the bright iridescent colours of _The Meaty Meal_ , as if it was an unusual beacon of red and pink lights amidst dark waters. It’s natural to be drawn by it, Mino reasons, and he reinforces his theory by studying the patrons always sitting at the same spot.

The diner is open 24/7 but people usually divide themselves by time slots and it’s always almost midnight when Mino goes to the diner. At that hour there are many solitary people like him. He can see it not only by the fact they seat by themselves, but also by a certain way in which they carry themselves, and in their eyes, never looking up from their table. They’re not waiting for someone, or even expecting, wishing for it.

Actually, Mino hasn’t always been like this. Solitary, dull, a boring white collar. Before he gave up on his dreams and faced his responsibilities as a young adult without means, he was the heart of every party and someone always craving for human contact. It’s not that he has entirely changed, he just got better at hiding it.

Yet he’s well aware that the reason he’s coming back to that diner is not only the surprisingly good food or the spell it casts on you with its warm palette and its 50s retro atmosphere – which makes Mino feel like the whole place lives in another dimension, estranged from the rest of the world –. Kim Jinwoo is surely the main one.

There are several waiters – including an eerily quiet girl with violet hair and fair skin, named Irene, who welcomed him the second time he went there – but Mino sits always at those tables Jinwoo serves. His conversation skills are quite rusty when it’s not about business, and Mino has never been the best at starting an actual conversation, always relying on his good looks and bright spirit to break the initial ice, but he does try his best with Jinwoo.

Jinwoo is charming and extra accommodating, always available for exchanging few words with him. Mino is fascinated by Jinwoo’s laugh because that’s the only moment when he breaks his almost perfect composure and erupts in a sincere expression, his voice deeper than usual and his hand up to his mouth to cover his teeth. Usually, Mino gets only smiles.

After few times, Mino starts asking for his help and Jinwoo promptly obliges, recommending the best dishes of the day. He leans toward him and looks at him with attentive studying eyes, a grin crossing his beautiful face. “You need to gain some weight”, he says, his fingers almost brushing his clothed arm. Mino tries to ignore the tingles on his skin and the excitement in his belly. “You need some more weight here, even if you’re... thick enough. You’d look beautiful”.

Mino blushes at the way he says those words, like a whispered veiled compliment that’s entirely directed to him. They play with his mind, helped by the serious tone Jinwoo uses. Mino would bet he’s a good actor, because few seconds later Jinwoo breaks in an awkward smile and excuses himself for being too theatrical, going back to his friendly tone that Mino so easily got used to.

All of that is almost _addicting_ , after long hours of unsatisfying work and piled days of bad thoughts. Few years ago, Mino would have never considered himself someone that would live regretting his choices, but now he does, and that’s something that kills him more than everything else. More than all the wrong love stories, the time he let Taehyun go away along with his heart and his art, all the times he spent half of his paycheck in art supplies.

Is it worthy to give up on dreams for safety? It’s already too late to ask this question, so he keeps it tucked at the back of his mind, somewhere where it should hurt less. He lives in shades of black, grey and blue – the suits he saw other people wearing are now his daily clothes, and the skyscrapers he’s never liked for being too impersonal, too cold, are now his first home. So he can’t help but feeling more alive when he goes there, among warm colours and people he doesn’t know at all. 

When there is no client around, Jinwoo sits across from him and talks: he always adds a serving of French fries with a lot of mayo and barbecue sauce for him, and sometimes he squeezes Mino’s forearm with an approving smile. “Getting there”. Few times he steals one of his fries and Mino finds himself following every one of his moves, getting distracted by the faintest smudge of sauce on his lips.

They talk easily, about anything that crosses their mind, and Mino finds himself falling more and more for the quiet and always listening Jinwoo. He hasn’t opened up to someone else this much since... too long to remember. There is always a certain sense of unease in talking about something more personal than what do you think about the weather or how crispy a French fry should be.

When he was younger, he would find the right moment with his friends to discuss movies and books and all his ideas, all his inner thoughts, when it felt right to confess; but after dropping out of college and starting working, nothing like that seemed to happen anymore. He was too busy, too tired, too used to hide everything – to keep his mind quiet, concealed. So he talks and talks and talks, and steals Jinwoo’s time without even paying for the service, because he’s literally craving for that even more than all the food Jinwoo feeds him.

His beauty – or maybe something else that’s barely visible, almost tangible – is so entrancing that Mino wants more. He finds himself losing hours of sleep between the long staying at the diner and the moments spent bent on his old sketchbook, charcoal on his hands and on the pages he fills with his image. His body feels tired and heavy, when he drags himself to work, but his soul hasn’t been this light in ages.

 

*

 

“You look great today”. He sounds soothing, complacent.

Mino doesn’t really feel that great: his boss has called him out for slacking too much at work lately, being slobby enough to be surpassed by enthusiastic but inexpert new recruits; and for gaining weight, at the top of it. They have an image to maintain, for the sake of the company. _Duties, efficiency, diligence; what’s proper and what’s not_ – adult words he dislikes with every inch of his body, words that cage him like not even clothes and flesh and bones could do.

Yet Jinwoo makes him feel like he’s never looked this good and he can’t help the genuine smile, changing in a startled look when the waiter approaches him and helps him taking off his jacket. His fingers almost squeeze around his shoulders, arms, wrists and Mino blushes at the contact.

“I don’t feel that amazing, to be honest”, he whispers in the space between them. It’s a proximity he’s been longing for and that takes his breath away so easily, making him feel dizzy. Jinwoo smiles and folds his jacket around his arm, his hand reaching for his shoulder to grip at it for the shortest instant.

“No way... you have never looked this healthy, all this meat around your cheeks... delicious enough to be eaten”, his fingers are but a brush of warmth about his face. Jinwoo grins and Mino’s brain just blanks out, unable to function when they’re this close. It’s almost intoxicating. “I’d take a bite... if you were food”.

Mino can’t help but thinking that’s an innuendo he should reply to with some action, but Jinwoo always leaves him paralyzed, with his beauty and his voice and the way he carries himself; it’s something he can look at but not touch, something he can draw, fantasize about, even jerk himself off at the thought of it – a beauty that asks to be tainted, and yet it’s too much for Mino to even suggest it. So he just follows him, putting off that idea for another night. For when he’s brave enough.

 

*

 

When he was a kid, they had a rather small portrait hanging in the living room. Mino has always wondered how that one had found its way to their home, because the rest of the pictures in their house were reproductions but this was authentic. This question came later, after years.

He spent hours and hours marvelling about the child in that picture: pale complexion and bright big eyes, it had to be a foreigner. The image had a certain warm quality in it, maybe given by the colours the artist had used to paint; yet Mino’s memories were always misleading, and the boy who looked rather friendly and welcoming had become eerily alluring, yet scary. It was a taunting vision, like those recurring nightmares all children have.

The boy had to be a small Lord who probably concealed his twisted nature behind that angelic face. He owned two Dobermans who walked by his side and snapped at everyone trying to get closer to their master, and Mino was sure they wouldn’t be fed for days so that they could be ready to bite at those who angered Milord.

Mino remembers how he used to stay in their living room, engaging in those thoughts that brought a deviant pleasure only to him (he had tried to tell his sister, but she was turned off by such stories). He created a whole life for that creature of oil paint, a work of fiction that mattered as much as reality.

Later on, when he became an Art major, sometimes he would remember the picture of his mind – the colours altered, misused – and find inspiration when he thought he was hopelessly stuck. The foul greens and yellows he saw, the grin that wasn’t there, that decadent beauty that covered the taste of death with the appearance of flourished wealth...

He was – without knowing, without even choosing, like a blind man that could only walk a specific marked path because the rest was darkness – attracted by all of that. By the authors and artists that would depict that shift from even balanced perfection to raw sincere imperfection, the metamorphosis from what the eye saw to what there was underneath; the pain of a sick soul, the clashes of colours it would bring to life.

He remembers the nights spent to find the key to such a dilemma: from art to daily situations, what teared apart the ideal fantasized ideas from cruel reality? How could he reach such sincerity, if not by painting what’s real – and unpleasant – and horrid – and everything sickening?

It was laughable, or probably sad, how that time spent doing art flew away in an instant, and yet the memories felt like true years of experience; and all the months of work were excruciatingly slow, but the memories amounted at just a few, because the rest was banality, was forgotten.

 

*

 

Mino muses on how to ask Jinwoo out without being too much of himself, embarrassingly clumsy when he’s crushing on someone and that someone is fairly out of his league, but Jinwoo exceeds all his expectations by taking the initiative. “Just wait for my shift to end”, he whispers to his ear one night, with the excuse of refilling his mug with fresh hot coffee. That beverage has never tasted so heavenly, not even after a whole night of work.

So Mino waits. His eyes glosses over the patrons’ faces he has learnt to know to fix them on Jinwoo: he follows him as he works his way through orders and he sometimes smile at his direction, when Jinwoo is looking, feeling like a high schooler waiting for the class to be dismissed so that they’ll be able to make out with their crushes in some recondite corner of the school.

It has the same feel of it – of when he was younger, and pretended to be overly confident, and he would be flirting with Taehyun while the teacher explained something with his monotone voice. Stolen glances, fleeting and significant, while no one around them was aware of what they shared. It has the same excitement coiling around his guts, and the sweaty palms, and the speedy chaotic heartbeat in his throat.

It’s a relief when the wait ends and Jinwoo goes to change in his own clothes. Mino feels like he can finally take a long breath and dive into an entirely new experience, thrilled by the fact he’s now able to get what he was looking forward to since the first time he laid his eyes on Jinwoo.

Jinwoo reaches him few minutes later, looking extremely dashing in his denim outfit, his hair soft and tousled over his forehead instead of being pulled back like when he’s working. He smiles at Mino and leads him outside, a cold hand grasped around his wrist – he lets go when the crispy night welcomes them. It’s almost 3 am and at the very end of autumn, so Mino can’t help the chills spreading on his back, and he hugs himself in the bomber jacket he’s wearing to seek some residual warmth.

“Where do you want to go now? I know a theatre in the city centre that’s open all night” Mino suggests, peeking at him from over his collar as they turn in a narrow alley. Even in the dim yellow lights of streetlamps, his pink head glows as much as _The Meaty Meal_ does among the other grey anonymous buildings. Sometimes Mino thinks they’re just one thing, Jinwoo and the diner, and they can’t exist if the other disappears.

“A movie? I do like thrillers”, Jinwoo sounds playful through the long scarf wrapped around his neck and face. “Who doesn’t like the thrill of a chase? Even if music helps a lot to create the right atmosphere, the fear and excitement... reality might seem duller”.

“So, a movie is it?”

Jinwoo is just behind him and Mino can bet he whispered something, something he catches few instants later, when he puts together the words he thought he misheard. “Reality can be good enough, though”. He turns to ask what he meant, but he’s not fast enough because Jinwoo pulls him in a darker alley before he can even open his mouth. And afterwards, he forgets about it.

Jinwoo is tugging at his hand as they almost stumble in the deep night, all the lights and the residual traces of life far away from where they are, and the only thing Mino can think about is their intertwined fingers and the help such darkness could give them. They could hug, they could kiss, and that would be a secret only the two of them know; in a moment and a space that’s only theirs, hidden by that thick cloth of blackness.

In such surroundings, Mino is extra conscious of their closeness. He can sense Jinwoo leaning forward with his whole tense body and, in a moment of bravery, he wraps a hand around his back to pull him closer, so that their height difference will be zeroed. He can feel Jinwoo’s lips near to his mouth, smell the overbearing sweetness of his cologne, long for him even if he’s in his arms.

“Who needs movies”, Mino whispers over his mouth and Jinwoo laughs, like all the other times, honest and open, the sound echoing in that narrow space. A shiver runs down Mino’s back at his shrill laugh, and he can only smile without joining him entirely.

“It’s time to make our own”, Jinwoo says and grips his chin while he fishes for something in his coat. “An unforgettable time”.

He leaps forward and Mino doesn’t avoid it – instead of a kiss on his lips, it’s a clash of iron on his head. It’s all too sudden: the piercing pain, the shock, the loss of balance that makes him drop on the ground. He tries to wiggle his arms, to get a grip around Jinwoo’s coat, but it’s just too much for him at this point; he can’t struggle, as a totally different darkness falls upon him.

 

*

 

“You must be wondering why I’m doing this to you. It’s nothing personal, really, but it’s also personal in a sense that I always choose my preys after long hours of study”.

Having spent a great deal of time in nearly perfect silence – only broken by the harrowingly falling of water drops on the ground – those words are like a cold shower to Mino, shaking him from inside. He opens his eyes abruptly, but it takes him a while to put everything on focus. His head is pounding in dull ache and he can feel crusted blood on his temple, as well as a nauseous thirst in his throat. He’s weak and decides to not move; he can’t do otherwise anyways, since he’s handcuffed to the wall behind him.

Jinwoo is hovering over him, a skewed grin crossing his face. Mino’s usual first reaction would be of fear, like all the other times he has faced unexpected situations, but today what surfaces amidst the chaos of emotions is unsteady fascination. Panic threatens to swell in his chest, as he stares at Jinwoo with a questioning look, but it’s accompanied by something that can only be called child-like amazement.

 _Devil is in the details_. The small one lying under Jinwoo’s loveliness, which Mino couldn’t quite grasp, almost tangible yet always out of reach, is now entirely bared in front of him, exposed in its raw terrifying beauty. So this is what lived underneath, behind the mask of tender kindness: his body language has changed, and the hint of dominance he showed before is unleashed in each one of his moves.

Jinwoo claps his hand around Mino’s hair and pulls his face upward. The distinction between the idea Mino had of him and reality is now shattered, and Mino can’t help but being attracted by such divergent images, wanting to see more of it. “I am sure you are asking yourself what you did to be chosen. Was something you said? Something you implied with your stares and words? Are you that special?”

Even his voice changed, where there was gentle servility there is now unkind conceit, and all those times he sounded bolder than expected, while serving Mino the costumer, fade in comparison to what stands before Mino’s two eyes. It’s wild, and strong, a whole beast of flesh and blood, and Mino feels a shiver down his spine when Jinwoo grazes his cheek with his finger and leans in to smell him.

His nose fondles about his ear, inhaling his scent with a low growl caged between his moist lips, but Mino’s breathless gasp is out before he can suppress it. He should be entirely grossed out by this, _he is_ , yet he can’t stop the gush of arousal and desire mounting in his body. It’s something sick, as much as his enjoyment in dwelling on what’s deemed horrible by others, on rotten and twisted beauty, and that’s when he understands at once that he has no way out from this. Either Jinwoo kills him or he’ll let him, for the sake of what he’s feeling.

“True, I had to check your background. Follow you, see if you had family. I had to be sure you would taste just as sweet as you look, get closer to take a sniff of your body odour, pamper you until you’d be ready. It is a lot of effort, for a no one, but it’s how we do it here, we choose what’s best for the palate”. Mino shivers when Jinwoo nudges at him, a hand seizing his neck to keep his head in place, and licks his cheek with no hurry. He nips around his cheekbone, but without digging his teeth for real. Then he draws back with a satisfied grin and Mino aches, in his entirety, for the terror and the excitement, both sewed together with adrenaline.

“It’s a difficult job but it’s what spices everything up, the main course I need in my life to make the difference between what’s average and what’s not. It’s my funny little game, which makes all those hours of small talks and annoying triviality worthy it. You’ve tasted the results yourself, in some of our best dishes”.

Mino recalls all the delicacies he has tried in the span of few months and it’s natural for him to gag at the thought of it – of having been feed with... –, and he ends up coughing as nausea takes its toll on him. The perfection that asked to be tainted, Jinwoo’s, doesn’t really need any of his help. It’s not him who will be spoiled and wrecked when this all ends, and Mino realizes he has been naïve to think it would be him changing things, him the one creating some sort of decadent imperfection, him being the schemer and artist of his own life. It’s not, it’s never been. He handed the brush to his executioner way before tonight, maybe when he asked to help him pick a dish the first time, maybe even before, from the first day he stepped into the diner. 

“Is it scary, right? You might think it’s tedious routine, I’m used to it, to follow my victim, to check whether there is nothing of significance in their life, no one that would miss them too much if they disappeared, no hassle as I pull them into my web every day a little more – but every time it’s like the first one. The thrill is never the same, because each one of my preys is different despite all their similarities. It’s a work of art, the chase itself. Every detail, every unexpected deviance, every twist is calculated, only an expert like me could do a perfect work”.

Mino sees it. He has never been this aware of his own indulgent self-importance, of his arrogance in being somewhat different from the crowd, smarter, special in his unique sadness, in his unfinished study and incomplete art. He’s aware of the sweat soaking his whole body as well as the heat that has taken him, like a fever he can’t fight; he’s aware he’s just... just food for the man standing in front of him. He’s aware of Jinwoo’s greatness, and of his own finitude.

“I chose you because you’re normal like anyone else, boring and forgettable. I chose you because I wanted to make you special. And I will”.

Jinwoo steps back, at last – Mino is able to breathe regularly, but what should bring him pleasure only brings him pain, as he is now willingly trapped in that funny little game, waiting for the next step.

“You’ll be art, the most special and treasurable – something unrepeatable, something unique, a flavour like no others, that will haunt whoever tastes it because there’ll be never something nearly like that”.

And Mino thinks it makes sense. _He_ does, like never before. All the empty talks he had, all the theories he wanted to pursue and prove with his studies, all the twisted realness he was seeking – everything will be in place. This will be the first piece of honest art he makes, and the last.


End file.
